Boxed Water, Greenwashing and the DeVos Family support for racist water policies in Michigan

More and more corporations are trying to present themselves as caring about the environment. These corporations use slick advertising campaigns and try to deceive us into thinking that we can consume our way out of the environmental crisis we have made.

Greenwashing is a term that eco-activists have used for several decades now, in an attempt to expose the hypocrisy of capitalism. Green Capitalism is especially visible around the time that we celebrate earth day. In fact, corporations have pretty much hijacked earth day, by trying to convince us that they too care about the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth, since what drives capitalism is labor exploitation, profits and exponential growth……none of which is sustainable.

A great example of greenwashing in the West Michigan-based product known as Boxed Water. Boxed Water markets themselves as a product that is Better For Our Planet. The company’s main argument is that buying water in plastic bottles is bad for the planet, so buy water in a box, which is completely recyclable.

While I would agree that buying bottled water is highly problematic, buying water in a box is just as deceptive.

First, water is essential to life. It should not be a commodity, but something that all life has access to. Second, the energy spent manufacturing the boxes, putting water into the boxes, shipping it and marketing the product could all go away if we just stuck to drinking water from a tap.

Third, for those who argue that tap water is not safe, then we should put our energies into fixing the water delivery system that comes from a municipal water infrastructure to homes, schools, hospitals, etc.

Fourth, Boxed Water, by their own admission, uses water from Lake Michigan, via their Holland plant. The company also has another facility in Utah.

Fifth, Boxed Water does use a filtration process, claiming that their water is more pure. Ok, so why don’t they apply this filtration process to all municipal water systems, so that we can all drink healthier water? Ah, but then the company could not make a profit…..and therein lies the problem. Well, at least one of the problems.

I’m sure that most people are well aware that Boxed Water is just one of the companies that is part of the Windquest Group. The Windquest Group is part of the DeVos Family empire and is specifically part of what Dick & Betsy DeVos own, along with Melissa DeVos and Rick DeVos.

Part of the irony of the DeVos Family owning Boxed Water, is that they are major contributors to Govenor Rick Snyder and many other state politicians that have supported the recent decision to grant the Nestle Corporation rights to steal more water from Michigan for their Ice Mountain bottled water brand. These same politicians have also engaged in the criminal acts being committed in Flint, where residents of that city STILL do not have access to clean, drinkable water.

The Flint water disaster is a direct result of having an emergency management system, which essentially takes power away from local communities and puts it in the hands of people that the state government choses.

This downsizing and privatizing of local government is also one of the main goals of the DeVos Family, both through their direct campaign contributions and through groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the West Michigan Policy Forum, which makes the privatization of government services their goal.

Another example of the DeVos effect on water is the Emergency Management system in Detroit, which has privatized some of the water services and made it a priority to shut water off to thousands of homes of mostly African Americans.

Like Flint, the Detroit water crisis is a deeply racist policy by design. Now, which politicians are responsible for these policies……….the very same politicians whom the DeVos Family has so zealously supported.